Conveyor guard



July 8, 1958 NE 2,842,251

CONVEYOR GUARD Filed Feb. 7, 1956 5 Sheets-Sheet l INVEN TOR. mars/mu. H BECK/V51? 8Y6 Z I! a v-TaJeA/sn. I

M. H. BECKNER CONVEYOR GUARD July 8, 1958 I Filed Feb. 7, 1956 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 I I I m it! I INVENTOR. (flees/#242 A6 5CMYR BY 6 1 {I a;

July 8, 1958 M.HBECKNER CONVEYOR GUARD 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed Feb. 7, 1956 July 8, 1958 A M. H. BECKNER 2,842,251

CONVEYOR GUARD Filed Feb. 7, 1956 5 sheets-sheet 4 'BYZ a y 8, 1958 2 M. H. BECKNER 2,842,251

CONVEYOR GUARD Filed Feb. 7, 71956 I 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 INVENTOR. mesa/01.1. b. BEcKMEE.

2,842,25 1 c Patented July 8, 1958 CONVEYOR GUARD Marshall H. Beckner, Washington, 'Pa., assignor to Tri- State Engineering Company, Washington, Pa., a corporation of Maryland Application February 7, 1956, Serial No. 563,947

1 Claim. (Cl. 198-1) My invention relates to conveyor guards, and more particularly to those of the type that are disposed beneath overhead conveyors or other types of overhead carriers, in position to catch articles or material dropped, to thereby protect workmen on the factory floor.

One object of my invention is to provide a troughlike guard structure formed of panels in standard shapes and sizes that can be shipped either in a disassembled condition or in a folded state, and which can readily be installed at the place of use, in desired multiple lengths or cut to suit particular installations.

Another object of my invention is to provide standard panels for forming trough-like guards that can readily be shaped and so arranged and assembled at the place of installation as to facilitate the placing thereof in relatively angular directions as guards beneath carriers which follow devious paths.

As shown in the accompanying drawings:

Figure l is a perspective view showing my guard as applied to an overhead conveyor track of the mono-rail yp Fig. 2 is an enlarged side elevational view of a portion of the structure of Fig.

Fig. 3 is a plan View showing another manner in which the guard may be positioned under relatively angular paths of the conveyor tracks;

Fig. '4 shows a manner of connecting the guard sections in a somewhat tortuous path; and

Fig. 5 shows the joining of the'guard to form a protective shield for conveyors that operate in vertical as well as horizontal directions.

Referring first to Figs. 1 and 2, the guard is here shown as applied to an overhead conveyor of the mono-rail type, although it can obviously be used with. other forms of conveyors. A conventional mono-rail is indicated by the numeral and serves as a trackway for carriers or conveyors of various well-known forms.

Bracket bars 11 are detachably secured to the rail by bolts 12. Hanger rods 14 are suspended from the outer ends of the bars 11, and at their lower ends, have hooked engagement with the bottom wall 15 of the troughlike guard and with the lower edges of the side walls 16.

The walls 15 and 16 may suitably be made of wires welded together to form mesh-like panels of convenient lengths. The side Walls are hingedly connected to the bottom wall by'helical wires 17 that are put into place by a screwing action, in embracing relation to the lowermost horizontal wires of the side walls and the adjacent edge wires of the bottom wall. Adjacent ends of the panels that constitute the bottom wall 15 are in like manner connected by helical wires 18, while the ends of the panels that form the side wall 16 are connected by helical wires 19. The sides 16 are held 2 in upright position by clips 20 whose ends are in embracing engagement with the hangers 14 and whose mid portions embrace adjacent wires of the sides 16.

In Fig. 1, the guard is shown as extended to lie beneath a conveyor that moves through paths which are at right angles to each other. In this case, a second bottom wall 21 is connected at its one end to a longitudinal edge of the bottom wall 15, by a helical wire 22, while a side wall 23 is connected to the bottom wall 21 by a helical wire 24 and to the end of the bottom wall 15 by a helical wire 25. At its vertical edge, it is connected to the end of the adjacent side wall 16 by a helical wire 26. The other vertical side wall 27 of the extension at 23 may suitably constitute an extension of one of the walls 16 by bending such wall as shown in Fig. 1.

Referring to Fig. 3, I show another manner in which the guard may be arranged at a right angle. In this case, the bottom walls 28 and 29 correspond to the bottom members 15 and 23 of Fig. 1. Since these members are cut on diagonal lines at the corners of the structure, it is necessary to provide additional connecting means for use with a spiral hinge 30. To this end, a mesh strip 31 is welded to the mesh 28 and a mesh strip 32 to the mesh 29, and their adjacent marginal wires are connected by the spiral 30. The outer side walls 33 and 34 are connected together by a spiral wire 35 and to the longitudinal edges of the bottom panels 28 and 29 by spirals 36 and 37 respectively, the inner side walls being connected by a spiral wire 38.

The structure of Fig. 4 is essentially the same as in Fig. 3, except that the angular joint or connection in Fig. 3 is duplicated at 40 and 41, the spiral hinges 42 and 43 corresponding to the spiral hinges 35 and 38 respectively, of Fig. 3.

Referring now to Fig. 5, bottom wall panels 45 and side panels 46 correspond to the panels of walls 15 and 16 of Fig. 1. In order to adopt the guard to a conveyor that moves in sloping directions, as well as horizontally, bottom and side wall panels 47 and 48 are connected together along the longitudinal edges of the bottom wall by helical wires 49, the bottom panels 45 and 47 being connected in end-to-end relation by a helix 50. The side walls 48 are connected to the upper edges of the side walls 46 by helices 51.

A lower guard section is connected to the horizontal section in a similar manner, in that its bottom wall is connected to the end of the bottom 45 by a helix 53 and the end walls 54 are connected to certain wires of the side walls 46 by helices 55.

It will therefore be seen that I provide guard panels of such form and arrangement that they can be handled and shipped with the panels all flatwise, either with the side walls hinged to the bottom panel or simply stacked on one another. Also, the panels can be assembled in desired lengths and at various angles to conformto angular paths of travel of a conveyor, either in vertical or horizontal planes, it being a simple matter to cut or trim the mesh to suitable lengths and angles.

I claim as my invention:

The combination with a track rail for a conveyor of the overhead type, of bracket bars supported thereby in crosswise relation thereto, pairs of hanger rods depending from the ends of the bracket bars, a guard trough bottom of weld wire mesh form connected at its longitudinal edges to the lower ends of the hanger rods, guard trough side walls of welded wire mesh form secured at their lower edges to the longitudinal edges of the said bottom and disposed alongside of the hanger rods, and means connecting the side Walls to the hanger rods, whereby they are held in upright position, the trough bottom and the side walls comprising sections arranged in end-to-end relation and connected together through the mesh openings at their meeting edges, whereby the sections are held against relative endwise movement and the bottom wall is held against sagging at longitudinally spaced points that areremote from the hangerrods.

'4 References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 124,286 Peters Mar. 5, 1872 5 926,004 Keller June 22, 1909 1,425,740 Baldwin Aug. 15, 1922 OTHER REFERENCES Modern Telpherage and Ropeways, by H. Blyth, 1926 10 ed., pub. by Van Nosh'and Co., Fig. 88 (facing p. 116). 

